River Portraits > The Music Wafts

By Asher Berman, © 2007 Asher Berman, Reprinted with permission.

The music wafts off the hatch shell over the massive crowd listening to the rock band Dispatch’s final concert. In the back of the crowd, more occupied with socializing then the music is a group of college-aged friends who grew up together in the South Shore. As the day progresses the summer heat becomes unbearable and we can feel our skin on our bear backs begin to burn. We decide to due a lap around the crowd in search of shade but are unable to find relief. Combinations of hippies and frat boys have already claimed any spot under a tree. We find ourselves on the banks of the Charles looking out across the river at a small, uninhabited tree line island and all come to the same conclusion without uttering a word. We carefully balance ourselves on the rocks as we wade into the river and turn around to taunt our slowest friend who is still on the far bank struggling with his shoelaces. He suddenly starts screaming and dancing on the rocks in a display we don’t understand that culminates with him running into the river with one shoe still on, much to our amusement. When he catches up to us treading in the middle of the river he explains that he had stepped on a hornets nested and gotten stung at least a dozen times. I laugh so hard that I begin taking on water and coughing. That’s right...I swallowed water from the Charles. We reach our private Island and sprawl out to dry off the in the shade while my friend nurses his wounds and I ask everyone individually if they think I’m going to die. Three years later, however, I am still alive and well. That afternoon on our Charles River Island remains one of my fondest memories of a summer afternoon in Boston.